1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a film cartridge sorting device for sorting film cartridges, especially those film cartridges which are to be discharged from a photographic film processor. The present invention also relates to a photographic film processor having the film cartridge sorting device incorporated thereinto.
2. Background Arts
There are various types of photo film cartridges, including ISO135 type, ISO110 type, ISO120 type and IX240 type. Cartridge shells as well as photo filmstrips are different in size and format between these types.
For development in a small scale automatic photographic film processor, hereinafter referred to as a mini-lab film processor, a film leader of a photo filmstrip is secured to a leader plate. Thereafter, the filmstrip is guided with the leader plate in the lead through several processing baths, such as a color developing bath, a bleaching bath, a bleach-fix bath, a super rinsing bath, and a stabilizing bath, as well as a drier section.
As for the ISO135 type photo film cartridge, the film leader is pulled out from its cartridge shell, and is attached to the leader plate. Thereafter, the cartridge shell is placed on a cartridge holder of the mini-lab film processor, while the filmstrip with its leader attached to the leader plate is further pulled out from the cartridge shell and is fed into the processing baths. When the filmstrip is fully pulled out from the cartridge shell, the filmstrip is cut at the trailing end off the cartridge shell. Then, the empty cartridge shell is dropped from the cartridge holder down to a cartridge recovery box.
As for other types of photo film cartridges, on the other hand, the individual photo filmstrip is pulled out from its original cartridge shell and then rewound into an intermediate cartridge shell that is specific to each film type. That is, the intermediate cartridge shells have different sizes from that of the ISO135 type cartridge shell, as well as from each other according to the film type. After the filmstrip is rewound into the intermediate cartridge shell, an end of the filmstrip that remains outside the shell is attached to the leader plate, and is placed in the mini-lab film processor in the same way as the ISO135 type photo film cartridge. An inner end of the filmstrip is not securely fastened in the intermediate cartridge shell, so that the filmstrip finally slips off the intermediate cartridge shell as the filmstrip is fed into the processing baths. When the entire length of the filmstrip is fed out of the intermediate cartridge shell, the intermediate cartridge shell drops off the cartridge holder down to the same cartridge recovery box as used for receiving the cartridge shell of the ISO135 type.
Among from the cartridge shells collected in the cartridge recovery box, the ISO 135 type cartridge shells are sorted out as wastes. The intermediate cartridge shells are also sorted according the film type, and are reused over again for containing filmstrips to develop.
Conventionally, sorting of the cartridge shells collected in the cartridge recovery box has been made by hand. This is labor intensive and inefficient.
An object of the present invention is to provide a film cartridge sorting device that can automatically sort the film cartridges according to the size of their cartridge shells.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a film cartridge sorting device that is simple in construction, and works without the need for electricity, and thus save the electric power.